Corbyn accused of honouring Palestinian terror chief
Labour leader’s attendance at wreath-laying ceremony is beyond the pale, says Jewish council leader
JEREMY CORBYN has been condemned by his own party after admitting that he attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the grave of a Palestinian terrorist involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
Less than a year before becoming Labour leader, Mr Corbyn visited the cemetery in Tunisia where members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, including Atef Bseiso who was directly involved in the attack, are buried, prompting outrage from Jewish groups.
Labour Friends of Israel – which represents 100 Labour peers and former MPS who are standing again – condemned the news, saying it was part of “a very disturbing pattern of behaviour”.
The Labour leader has previously been criticised for a speech in which he linked the Manchester bombing to Britain’s foreign wars just four days after the attack.
Tonight Mr Corbyn faces his toughest challenge of the campaign when he – along with Theresa May – answers questions posed by Jeremy Paxman and a live studio audience for Sky News and Channel 4.
The Tories are also hoping to increase the pressure on Labour by sending out a fleet of “ad vans” as part of a final push to convince voters she is best placed to negotiate Brexit.
Mr Corbyn also appeared to shift his position after claiming on Friday that he had never met the IRA. Yesterday the Labour leader conceded that he had met “former prisoners who have told me they were not in the IRA”.
Separately Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, refused to renounce her support for the IRA decades ago, saying only that her hairstyle and views had changed since then.
The election campaign has been dominated by questions about Mr Corbyn’s toleration of the IRA, and links to groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, which he has described as “friends”.
Mr Corbyn has also been under fire for failing to take a tougher line against anti-semitism in the Labour Party.
In an article for the communist newspaper Morning Star in October 2014, Mr Corbyn described how he had attended a commemoration for Palestinians killed at their Tunis headquarters by Israeli jets in 1985.
The Labour leader wrote: “After wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died on that day and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in 1991, we moved to the poignant statute in the main avenue of the coastal town of Ben Arous, which was festooned with Palestinian and Tunisian flags.”
This is believed to be a reference to Bseiso, a former head of intelligence for the PLO, who is believed to have been buried there.
There is no record of Mossad assassinating anyone in Paris in 1991. However, the Israeli secret service has been accused of shooting and killing Bseiso in the city in on June 8, 1992.
At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Palestinian terrorists captured and murdered 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer. Over the following years Israeli agents allegedly hunted down and allegedly killed many of those involved, including Bseiso.
According to one account two young men approached Bseiso, then aged 43, in a Paris street; one of them pointed a Beretta pistol fitted with a silencer at him and shot him in the head.
Israeli author Aaron Klein wrote: “The three bullets hit Bseiso in the head. He fell on the spot, next to his friend’s car, his final inhalation a gurgle…within seconds, the assassin and his backup were rapidly retreating.”
Jennifer Gerber, director of the Labour Friends of Israel which claims the support of 100 peers and MPS before Parliament broke for the election, said: “It is almost unbelievable that any Labour MP would participate in a ceremony honouring a man involved in the vicious murder of innocent Israeli athletes. Unfortunately, this appears to be part of a
very disturbing pattern of behaviour and we are seeking urgent clarification from the leader’s office on this matter.”
Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, added: “It is high time that Jeremy Corbyn clarify his views regarding Palestinian terrorism. At first sight, attending a wreath-laying ceremony for a known terrorist, who led one of the most notorious acts of international terrorism, the attack on the Munich Olympics, would appear to be beyond the pale.”
A Tory source added: “Jeremy Corbyn’s inappropriate relationship with murdering terrorists isn’t ancient history – it continues to this day.”
Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, said: “Jeremy Corbyn has spent 30 years siding with those who oppose Britain and the West.
“Now with two weeks to go before an election he wants to pretend to voters he will put Britain’s security first and will stand up for the country’s interests in the Brexit negotiations. His record says otherwise.”
The Israeli embassy in London did not comment, saying it did not get involved in elections.
Last night, Mr Corbyn denied he had been honouring Bseiso, telling Sky News: “We were searching for peace in the Middle East. The only way we achieve peace is by bringing people together and talking to them.”
A source close to Mr Corbyn said he attended the ceremony because it was “commemorating the bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunis in 1985” but he did not lay a wreath himself.
The source said: “In the same cemetery there are some other people in it. Some of these people – not Jeremy, he was just physically present – also laid a wreath on another grave.”
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “This is an extremely tenuous set of connections.”
Last night, one of Mr Corbyn’s key aides suggested that he will try to continue as Labour leader even if the party is defeated in the general election.
Ian Lavery, Labour’s elections and campaign coordinator, told a rally in Glasgow that “whatever happens” the “Corbyn project” is only beginning. He added that the party was in the “long, long, long process of changing politics”.